Spring Training Gameday: Intrasquad Game

The Phillies first competitive exhibition of the Spring is upon us – a five inning intrasquad game starting at noon. Team One, led by Jonathan Pettibone, will do battle with Team Two, led by Adam Morgan.

Notes: Pettibone replaced Ethan Martin as the starter but it is an issue of semantics. Martin is still scheduled to pitch. Other pitchers scheduled to throw include: Cesar Jimenez, Mauricio Robles, Kyle Simon and Justin Friend.

44 Comments

….So Amaro dumped salary on Victorino, and Pence so in the off season we could get who?
Amaro didnt pick up one upgrade this off season, except in the relief corp. Everybody will

Remember that Amaro single handedly destroyed this team.

This was the last year they legitimately had a chance to get to the post season and beyond.
The Major pick ups should have been one of the Uptons, and Soriano. Now, not only did we not get them, but we’ll have to face both Uptons consistently. Again, since we have no offense Halliday will have to throw out his shoulder in order to win games.

And Guess what? in 2014 the free agent market sucks for outfielders, and third basemen.

I guess the silver lining in all of this is; ticket prices will go way down after this season.

The stupidity of Philly fans never ceases to amaze me. One commenter is not sure whether they should take Upton and Soriano over Revere and Young seriously. The other commentor in some way thinks the salary that the Cubs payed Soriano somehow translates into a negative for us, when the Cubs were going to pay roughly 80% of his salary owed.

The Phillies have quantitatively and qualitatively gone down every year Amaro has been at the helm. But not only did Amaro really F***k up the off season, he in essence will waste our pitching rotation on a season that wont go anywhere.

All I know is, for the Phillies to even make it to the post season, everything has to go perfectly.
Thats never been phila sports teams strong suit.

Hey, Arc, the Phillies have not “quantitatively and qualitatively gone down every year Amaro has been at the helm.”

Amaro took over in 2009.

Wins:
2008 – 92
2009 – 93
2010 – 97
2011 – 102
2012 – 81

Until last season they improved their win total in each of Amaro’s years. You can say that he inherited a lot of the talent that pulled that off, and you can say that he leveraged the minor league system to pull it off, and you can say that he’s exhausted all financial flexibility in order to do so, but you cannot say that the Phillies have been a worse team every year he’s been the GM. That’s just not at all true.

The lineup as it stands is aging, strikeout prone, walk adverse, and free-swinging so you suggest that we compliment that with two more guys that are exactly that? Yeah great plan.

If we signed BJ Upton, we would have been tied to him for 5 years (til age 33 I think) at 15 mil per. The guy has barely ever batted over .250 and had a sub .300 obp last year and he is up near 150K’s a year. PLUS we would have given up our 16th pick and roughly 2.0 million in bonus pool money that goes with it. So not only would that hurt our current salary cap but it would have a tremendous impact on our already depleted farm system.

Trading for Soriano would have also hurt our cap space. He also is K-heavy, old, injury prone, and doesn’t get on base all that much. If as you suggest, the Cubs were to pay part of his salary it would be more feasible, but that means we would have to give up value in return. Most likely Dom Brown and prospects. Does Soriano really help us that much?

So we go in with a young, cheap outfield with plenty of potential. If Brown/Ruf don’t pan out then we have Young or Mayberry to fill in adequately in the interim. AND by having cap space we can actually make a deadline move if we need that push to get in the playoffs. The reason RAJ has always overpaid at the deadline is because we have had NO cap space so we have to have other teams “eat” the salary. To get other teams to do this, you have to overpay with prospects. Now since we have cap space, he won’t have to do this.

I want to say you are insane, but that kind of stupid comment would just reinforce the reputation of the “philly” fan like some posters do on here. However, If you mean to tell me going with Revere, Ruff the “?” and brown is better than Soriano, and Upton? well, what can I say. We have one of the largest markets in baseball, and youre worrying about cap space? Dont you realize, the age of this team? this is it. It was this year or never. Dude, the run is over, thanks to Amaro.

yeah EricL, You can say any success he rode was not really of his making. Any success you correlate to him is just that a possible correlation. But highly unlikely 2) You post 1 quantitative statistic. Thats the best you can do? Winning games, becuase of pitching while offensive production has gone down. If your going to quote stats quote them all. So, yes I can confidently say theyve been a worse team. And how do we get better in 2014-15? is the rest of the NL getting weaker? Who do we draft? Is anybody coming up in the farm system?

No, i speak as if ericl is trying to refute my statement by citing one statistic. To be honest, Amaros 2011 pitching staff; in my opinion was the only reason for the wins, but you see how winning games at the expense of not evenly equiping a team makes a win statistic meaningless. In other words, if they win over a 100 games and then dont make it to the playoffs for the next decade, what would this statistic have meant?

Arc, the point is you didn’t specify. You just said, “[t]he Phillies have quantitatively and qualitatively gone down every year Amaro has been at the helm.” That’s just not true if you measure success in baseball by wins.

I don’t think Ruben Amaro is a particularly adept general manager, and I don’t agree with many of the things he’s done. I think he’s been shortsighted and willfully ignorant of some of the more modern theories about team construction and player value. All that said, I cannot say that in all facets of the game the team has been worse every year under his management, because that’s just not factually true.

Had you said, “On the whole, he’s been a net negative for the long term health of the franchise,” or “Ruben has spent too much money on the wrong players and that’s bound to backfire eventually” or anything specific like that I wouldn’t have necessarily disagreed. But you didn’t narrow your focus, you made a point of saying that by every measurable metric the team has gotten worse. Well, the single most important metric for measuring the success or failure of a team in any one particular season is wins, and by that metric Ruben’s teams steadily improved until last season’s disaster.

Focusing solely on pitching or offense in isolation is a bit of a useless exercise. What matters is that you score more runs than your opponent. You can score 10 runs a game and it doesn’t matter if your staff gives up 11 runs a game, or similarly you can score 1 run a game if you have a stellar pitching staff that tosses shutouts every game. Winning is all that really matters.

Maybe for unanticipated reasons, the Delmon Young signing wasn’t such a bad idea after all? It’s a funny reason to spend 750,000 to 3 million dollars, i’ll grant you that. But if the right outcome, meaning Brown and Ruf playing well enough to start is what they get, what the hell. It’s a drop in the bucket to them, and maybe Young can be a right handed “Matt Stairs like” bench bat to boot.

Amaros whole baseball strategy is built on hope. He hopes Utleys knees will be fine, he hopes Howard will come to form, he hope Ruff will produce a million to one odds, he hopes D. Brown will finally pan out, he hopes Halliday will keep having CY young years. 3/4 of baseball revolves around hope, theres no need with our market to leave ones personel up to hope also.

Also, Id rather have an over payed all star team and lose than have a mediocre team and lose. Im going to drop 500.00 just to see the Dodgers when they come to town, and guess what? I dont dont give two s**ts if they only score one run, and the majority of this fanbase would do likewise. How much revenue do you think the Phillies earn with Hamilton, Upton Soriano in the line up? Im sorry maybe Im wrong. maybe Amaro rralized he can spend less and still clear the same amount of profits. After all,all Amaro is really concerned with is the business right???

Arc, I don’t think everything you say is wrong. I think you’re a bit over the top because if you look through baseball history there are very few years where the odds on favorites in the beginning of the season actually win the WS. Hope is part of every GM’s strategy, like it or not. Hope was Billy Beane’s strategy last season, same with Dan Duquette- and they both made the playoffs.

RA Jr. makes his moves, many of which I am not fond of, and have stated so right here. And yes he hopes for health and an occasional bloop single. But guess what, so does Brian Sabean, a guy that has made some of the worst decisions in MLB GM history, yet he has championships in 2 out of 3 years? There is no magic formula, I hear everyone say that Andrew Friedman’s way is the right way. And I ask, how many championships do the Rays have?

As far as this offseason, I am glad that Amaro showed restraint and held back some. The FA OF’s were way too overpriced and the 16th pick (and associated funding that would have been lost) was too important. He kept spending and raking the farm system with trades year after year- chasing it- like a terrible poker player or compulsive gambler. Alfonso Soriano? maybe you’re right there, it made more sense to me than Michael Young if comparing two deals where the trading team would pay most of the fare. Oh well.

There are some that believe a window is closing, not me. You want a team with Upton and Upton, you can have it. The infield and pitching on this team were costly for a league with a Luxury tax, so they decided not to spend too much on the OF this year. Smart move IMO, you have to have some low cost players. And yes you have to “hope” those guys come through for you, it’s just the way it is. Enjoy your Dodgers, their experiment will eventually fail just like the Marlins did, the Red Sox.- Really the only heavy spending plan that’s worked in the last twenty years is the Yankees. Look how foolish the overpaid LA Lakers superstar team looks right now.

Again, is RA Jr. perfect? Far far from it. I railed against the Papelbon and Howard signings, and several other moves he has made, but his strategy this summer, a plan to reign in the spending was A-OK with me.

Sounds reasonable, only I base my assessment on one significant limiter; time. This team is not in build mode, this team is done after this year. Utley, maybe. Howard? declining, Michael young? LOL, Chooch done, Halliday? maybe, Lee? maybe, Revere? O.K., Brown? LOL, Jroll? maybe.Hamels? ace, Paps? yes. BP? OK. All im saying is that this season they had just enough juice to win a title. After this, they gotta rebuild anyway. Soriano? for 2 years at 10mil? for 30 bombs? BJ Upton, as a key piece to rebuilding this team? I dont get Philly fans logic.

At least the original tries to back up his thoughts with some facts, even if he stretches them at times, and ignores the ones that don’t fit with his diatribes. He can also be optimistic once in a while. But this new one is just a pain in the butt; not worth reading, and certainly never worthy of a personal response.

AFW: I did point out that you and ARC have some differences, and implied, I believe, that you are the better and more reasonable of the two. Just the fact that I am responding to your comment should show that. I won’t respond to anyone whose “more intelligent than thou” attitude (“The stupidity of Philly fans never ceases to amaze me.”) and basic nastiness shows as blatantly as Arc’s does.

I’d rather banter back and forth with AFW over this clown arc anyday. At least AFW is friendly and kind (kind of goofy but that’s ok). arc just seems like an angry dude that’s taking out all his frustrations on Philly sports teams and their fans.

By the way? Where did all of these gremlins come from? Like the last 5 articles there have only been like 20 posts. I make one comment, and every sofa manager, philly scum, and irrational philly fan comes out of the wood works critisizing my opinion. Geez, now where did that “worst fans in professional sports” reputation come from anyway. I guess if I dont post, some of these jerks wouldn’t have a life worth living.

By the way, I love how this fan base has some of the most knowledgeable basball specialists in the tri state area, and yet, MLB, college, baseball, no not even Fairmount little league has inquired about your services. actually, id love to know what some of you guys occupations are.

Anyway, i didnt mean to beat a dead horse; Im sure we all know in the bottom of our heart the run is over. I only revisited this topic because I looked to see 2014 free agents, and it is almost as bad as the quarterback class draft in the NFL. Just wondering; how the hell is Amaro going to dig himself out of the hole he made. LOL

Reality check!! Youre all on a blog talking baseball. Get a hold of yourselves.

I happen to make some side money betting horses. Many times I bet against my best friends horses and hope I lose my bet.
My analysis is based on that. I dont dislike anyone.
I simply try to evaluate whats happening and trying to predict what may be coming.

I rarely get into the hypothetical. Like trading Howard for Pujos.
When the trade happens I like to think I can give some good insights into things.

I do like to come here for fun and while I wouldnt use excited or optimistic to describe my thoughts going into 2013. I am hopeful.

Every once and a while an old team of vets rises to the occasion.
If its Cy Halladay and Cy Lee I thnk theres a chance of that.
The line up is simply very bad. That wont change.
Thats on RAJ.

It absolutely is the truth. RAJ is employed and paid by the Phillies organization. It is his job to care about the business and the value of the franchise. In all likelihood no one that posts on this site has access to the inner workings of the business end of the franchise, for example any clamp that Dave Montgomery and his partners may have imposed on spending this off-season. Many of his deals leave one scratching his or her head, but I don’t think you can allege as Arc does that Amaro doesn’t care about the success of the team or that he hasn’t tried to make the team better.

I love the post, that act as if i dont exists, it reminds me of being back in kindergarten. Remember, thats what the kids used to do? At least the girls. Anyway, void of all statistical reason, I will go to my grave believing that the fatal mistake of this org was not resigning Jayson Werth/or finding adequate protection for Howard. You didnt protect him, our line up died.

“That team was making the playoffs regardless. It was a historicly great pitching staff (for the phillies).”

Not just for the Phillies. It was one of the greatest team pitching performances in history.

It’s always entertaining to see folks put more stock in a 5 games series than the 162-games season. I would bet that at least once a week during the season, a team that isn’t nearly as good as their opponent wins a series. So I have a hard time being surprised when it happens in the postseason, when teams are, if anything, much more evenly matched.

“I just feel there should have been another title and another WS appearance in the last 5 years.”

One can feel robbed or cheated or whatever, but the bottom line is that this Phillies team has gotten about as much out of their 5 postseason appearances as any team has a right to expect.

These are the past 5 playoff appearances for teams that have been successful in recent years. Some teams have been more successful. Most have not:

Chase .261 (side note…Utley played 115 games in 2010, his most since ’09. Tough HOF selling point)

Howard .287 (with a .219 BA, validating his 4 times higher K rate than walk rate. In ’09, his BAPIP was “only .325, not drastically higher,).

Mike Young .299 (year before, when he hit .338, his BAPIP was .367, the .299 dropped hims BA to .277 with a lousy OBP. Almost impossible for him not to do better. But how much is given back defensively is a question.

Revere .325 (up about 30 points frpm a year ago, as was his average.

Jimmy .262 (unfortunately, he’s not a high BAPIP guy, so it’s not like a red flag of a guy who was unlucky_

Chooch .??? (who cares? it had to be sky high, and physics law says it has to drop, or gravity is iobsolete.

Dick Stuart .258 in 1965, his 1 full year with the Phillies. But his most shocking statistic was that he actually wore a glove every inning he played defensively. His defensuve rep would question that.